Psychology

Two Lives

by Fernando Moreira / September 27, 2018

We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.
Elvis Presley

“I can easily keep my personal life separated from my professional one”, said him.
OK. So, are you saying you have 2 lives?

What do you do in your personal life?

I love the weekends and my annual 22 vacation days. In my personal life, I can be myself. The laid-back Tozé that my family so well knows. A friend of your friend. Always ready to help. I speak my mind, no masks. I’m constantly joking around. I like to walk around wearing casual shorts and sleeveless T-shirts.
I’m usually like that between 6 PM and 9 AM plus weekends.

What do you do in your professional life?

I party on Fridays. Hate Mondays. I adopted a Yang posture so I can defend myself and not be easily judged. This mask protects me from possible problems and complications (like being fired). I respect and like to be respected. As soon as I’m disrespected, I’ll bring them down. I only walk ‘cause I’m forced to. I even have that on my contract to make it happen.
I’m usually like that between 9 AM and 6 PM minus weekends.

We only have one life

Most of the world’s population live their lives like that, between these two lives. To live like that is to live suffering. Chained and in the dark. Without any freedom. To live like that is to live in extremes.

As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to live in such extremes. How long can a pendulum stay in one extremity? Only for a moment. How long can it live in the center, resting, making no effort? Indefinitely. In physics, theoretically speaking, how much energy does a pendulum needs to go from one extremity to the other? Immense amounts. How much does it need to stay rested in the middle? Zero. We spend so much energy going from one extreme to the other in our daily lives. Why? What for?

You already know the answer. We all know it. For what? We only have one life. You don’t have a personal and a professional life. You’re not an object, you are what you notice. And it’s easy to notice that if you live two lives, you’re suffering and wasting a lot of energy. Needlessly so. You have one life, only one.

Life is not something you can have. Let alone two. Life is something you live. We need only to notice the gift that is life, this gift that is the chain of events that go by from your first breath to your last.